


Gravity

by estriel



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Complicated Relationships, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics, Romance, Romantic Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 00:11:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estriel/pseuds/estriel
Summary: “What do you want?” Javi had asked then. “Whatmoredo you want?” It came out bitter, more so than Javi felt. But in that moment, fingers brushing the gold that he, too, had wanted more than anything else, he hated Yuzu a little. Javi had given everything… and Yuzu took it all. And yet here he was to ask for more, still.ORNothing about his relationship to Yuzuru Hanyu is what Javi would have expected.





	Gravity

**Author's Note:**

> Please listen to the song I linked at the beginning before you delve in.  
> Also, I apologize for any grammatical and/or stylistic hiccups. English is not my first language, but I try.
> 
> Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. The events described in this fic are all fake, a figment of my imagination, and have no relation to any real people or events.

_”Hey love,_  
_I am a constant satellite_  
_of your blazing sun._  
_My love,_  
_I obey your law of gravity._  
_This is the fate you've carved on me..._  
_Your law of gravity…”_

_[Vienna Teng, Gravity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ULXgJ18xuY) _

It’s not what Javi had imagined his first time with a man would be. And yet here they are.

He had had opportunities before, of course. The handsome blond flirting with him at the bar back home in Madrid. The barista in Toronto who always gave Javi a wink and an extra dollop of caramel syrup in his latte. The volunteer back in Sochi who had smiled at him and given him his phone number along with a handful of the official Olympic condoms he was handing out to the athletes.

None of these had just ever seemed… enough. Not with Yuzu always hovering in the corner of Javi’s consciousness, an unreachable specter that – though Javi knew it could never be – managed to hold Javi’s attention in ways no one else could. His attention and, Javi fears, a good chunk of his heart.

It’s not that Javi has never thought of Yuzu that way. He has, more times than he can remember. Sometimes it was all Javi could think of, watching Yuzu strip out of his training gear, so oblivious to what he was doing to Javi. He just never thought it could actually happen.

And yet here they are.

When he had opened his door earlier to find Yuzu standing there, all bundled up in the orange jacket of Team Japan that somehow looked great on him even despite the ill-chosen color, Javi had known it was a bad idea. He let Yuzu in anyway.

Once inside, Yuzu had unzipped his jacket, revealing a plain long-sleeve underneath – and the medal around his neck.

Then he had stepped closer, too close, close enough for Javi to see every tiny imperfection in his seemingly immaculate complexion. He had taken the medal off and carefully laid it around Javi’s neck. It felt heavier, somehow, than Javi’s bronze. 

“I would not make it without you. This is yours, too,” Yuzu had said. His eyes were earnest and bottomless as he held Javi’s gaze. Like a pit Javi could fall into and never claw his way out again. 

“What do you want?” Javi had asked then. “What _more_ do you want?” It came out bitter, more so than Javi felt. But in that moment, fingers brushing the gold that he, too, had wanted more than anything else, he hated Yuzu a little. Javi had given everything… and Yuzu took it all. And yet here he was to ask for more, still. 

Yuzu’s eyes pierced him; it was the same look he wore for competition, striding into the rink like he owned it. A hunter out to claim his prey. Except now it was not gold Yuzu had set his sights on. It was Javi.

“You,” Yuzu had said, softer than Javi would have expected, almost shy. 

Javi could have stepped away then, laughed into Yuzu’s face. He knew in that moment that if he didn’t stop this, he’d probably come to regret it. Whatever had been between them, the bitterness and distance that had accumulated over the past season to come to its climax here in PyeongChang, there was also the steady, warm affection, years of friendship and easy camaraderie to fall back on. It was a lot to risk, for a moment of pleasure. Still, Javi knew that if he _did_ stop this now, he’d regret it even more, left forever to wonder: _what if_.

And so here they are and it’s nothing like what Javi had expected.

Yuzu kisses him, his mouth falling on Javi’s softly like the first flakes of snow on a winter morning. 

He takes Javi’s clothes off with trembling fingers, asking permission before he drops to his knees to lick at Javi, lave him gently with his tongue, eyes never straying from Javi’s as he does so. 

He guides Javi to the bed, fingers linked with his, and then strips off before sinking on top of Javi, warm and solid in Javi’s arms. He feels so delicate, so deceptively soft – and yet Javi knows Yuzu will break him, over and over again, in one way or another, like he has been doing for the past seven years. Javi lets him.

He lets Yuzu breach his body with careful fingers, the sensation so foreign and yet so good Javi could cry. 

He lets Yuzu take him, take all of it, because that is what Yuzu does, always. The Olympic gold is heavy against Javi’s chest as Yuzu sinks into him with aching precision and utmost care, like he’s not sure how much of him Javi can actually bear, afraid of making the wrong move. Javi is surprised that Yuzu doesn’t realize that Javi will take all of him, and ask for more. 

There are tears in Yuzu’s eyes as he rocks into Javi, their breath mingling between them and their bodies slotted together perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle. With pain chasing pleasure up and down his spine, Javi bites his lip so he doesn’t tell Yuzu right there and then. _I love you. I hate you. I always have. I always will._

*

It is the wrong time. A dangerous time. Still, Javi cannot stay away. Yuzu’s eyes are red-rimmed when he opens the door for him in Saitama. He stares at Javi like he’s an apparition. A fresh tear slides from the corner of his eye as he steps aside to let Javi into his room.

“I failed, Javi, I failed,” he whimpers when the door falls shut behind them. 

“You never fail,” Javi tells him and gathers him in his arms, cradling his face like it’s 2015 again and Yuzu has lost to him for the first time. Back then, Javi had thought, momentarily, that he could win. That he could keep winning. By now, he knows that there is no winning against Yuzuru Hanyu. There is only surrender.

That is why he is here now, a year later. He has tried to stay away. To define himself outside of Yuzu. And to a degree, Javi is proud to have succeeded, with shows and new individual projects taking shape at home in Spain. But in his private life, Javi sees no way around this, around Yuzu. He has come to accept it: the love that is holding his heart hostage. Whatever bitterness he may have felt has dissolved, smoothed over by the distance and clarity one gains by stepping back from the madness of competition. 

“You are the best, the only one,” Javi whispers into Yuzu’s hair. Yuzu’s eyes snap up to his, sharper than they were the last time they had stood like this, like there is a new darkness roiling underneath the surface that Javi had not encountered before. It makes Javi wonder if he’s the only one who has changed over the past year, or if Yuzu has come to conclusions of his own, too. 

This time, they fall on each other, desperate and hungry, tongues twisted together until Javi can’t breathe, doesn’t care to breathe. 

It’s hurried, but still gentle, when Yuzu touches him. Through the haze of pleasure that Yuzu’s fingers spark in him, Javi notes the measured way of Yuzu’s movements, like he’s holding back, similar to the way he has learned to control his lutzes to keep from overrotating them. Javi wishes he would let go. 

When Yuzu spoons him later, one of Javi’s knees pulled up to his chest for a better angle, it is so perfect, though, that Javi feels like he would give up everything if he could only have this forever – being cocooned in this embrace, full to the brim and sweetly aware of Yuzu’s every movement, of his every heartbeat. 

Suddenly, Javi is tired of keeping them in, the words he never dared say because he was afraid they’d ruin everything between them – their friendship, the precarious balance they maintained as rivals, the blurry line between wanting victory for himself and wanting happiness for Yuzu.

“I love you,” he whispers into the narrow space between two cresting waves of blinding pleasure. “ _I love you._ ”

Yuzu stills, buried deep inside him. His palm flattens onto Javi’s chest, a warm presence over Javi’s fluttering heart. Yuzu exhales against Javi’s ear, a ragged little puff. He presses his face into the back of Javi’s neck and Javi feels the wetness, hot against his skin, as Yuzu starts crying again. 

Yuzu doesn’t say anything, just stays there for a moment, swallowing the sobs that Javi can feel vibrating through his chest. Then, with a pained whimper that yanks at Javi’s gut like a fishhook, Yuzu moves. He picks up an erratic rhythm, clawing at Javi’s skin and driving them closer together, faster, until Javi can barely remember his own name. Judging by the string of broken sounds that rip from Yuzu’s mouth as he comes, Javi assumes Yuzu’s mental state is about the same. 

“Do you think we could…” Javi says later when they lie among the white sheets, entwined. He lets his fingers brush the fine lines of the Olympic rings inked into Yuzu’s skin where his hip-bone juts out. It’s a new addition. Yuzu hadn’t had it, back in PyeongChang. “You and I – do you think we could do this? For real?” his voice quivers as the words leave his mouth, but Javi needs to know. 

Yuzu inhales and opens his mouth. His eyes squeeze shut, the blackness of his eyelashes almost shocking against his pale cheeks. He’s so beautiful, Javi thinks. He always has been. Javi just hadn’t allowed himself to really think it until now.

Yuzu bites his lip and opens his eyes again, but instead of meeting Javi’s gaze, he’s looking down at Javi’s fingers, at the symbol they are tracing.

“We can’t. I can’t,” he whispers, voice barely there.

Something inside Javi shatters.

*

To say that he has come to Beijing to simply enjoy the competition would be a colossal lie. But Javi likes to tell himself that he is here for _himself_. To prove to himself that he can, that he is over this – over Yuzu. 

He holds his breath the entire four minutes of Yuzu’s free skate, or that’s what it feels like, anyway. When Yuzu’s music stops and he collapses down onto his knees, palms flat on the surface of the ice, Javi feels sick with pride, with joy, with everything he thought he had left behind. The arena explodes into madness all around him, but all Javi can hear is the beating of his own heart. He is not over this. He was a fool to think he ever could be.

There is a knock at his door, later that night, too late. Javi is not sure where Yuzu got his room number, how Yuzu even knows Javi is here, but he suspects Brian. Brian could never hold his ground against Yuzu, Javi should have known. 

Just like in PyeongChang, Javi also knows he should not open the damn door. He does it anyway.

“Another gold to hang around my neck?” Javi asks as he lets Yuzu in. The joke falls flat, but Yuzu only shrugs. He looks oddly small and insecure for someone who has just made history. 

“You did this one yourself, though. I didn’t help at all,” Javi continues, babbling to keep himself distracted. Three years. Three years and still the desire is like a physical kick in the gut when he catches a whiff of Yuzu’s scent.

“You did, though.” Yuzu turns around to face him. His hair is swept to the side and even though he’s 27 now, he looks just the same. He looks like everything Javi’s ever wanted.

Javi raises an eyebrow. “How did I help?”

“Every day, Javi. I think of you every day,” Yuzu says with the softest, saddest smile on his face.

The words are out before Javi can stop himself, the tone way too accusing for someone who is supposed to have moved on: “If you thought of me every day, why didn’t you ever call? Or text. _Anything_.”

Yuzu’s lip quivers and his eyes look glassy when he meets Javi’s. “Because if I did, I would quit.” He swallows. “I would quit skating and just want to be with you.”

It makes Javi’s blood boil.

“Would that have been so bad?” he lashes out. It has never been enough for Yuzu, though, has it? He always had to strive for the impossible. “Two Olympic golds, Yuzu. I told you how I felt in Saitama. I would have given up everything – “

“Maybe I was wrong,” Yuzu interrupts, head bowed. He seems subdued even when faced with Javi’s anger. It’s unlike him. “Maybe the gold is not so important.” 

Javi chokes out a humorless laugh. Leave it to Yuzu to doubt himself after having achieved the impossible, having cemented himself as living legend. The laugh dies on his lips, though, when Yuzu looks up and Javi sees his eyes are brimming with tears. 

He draws a trembling breath. “I have loved you, Javi, since – since you beat me at Worlds? Before that, probably, but I realized at that time. I was so sad, but I was so happy and proud because you win. I never felt that way about anyone else. Like the medals didn’t even matter so much.” He bows his head for a second, then squares his shoulders before he looks at Javi again. “I love you. And I want to –“

“You want to,” Javi snaps. “But what if I don’t. Maybe I don’t. I have a _life_ , Yuzu. One that does not revolve around you anymore. I am –“ Javi stops there, reevaluates. Happy is not the right word. “– content.”

“Javi,” Yuzu whispers, the tears spilling over. There is an openness to him now, a vulnerability, that Javi had not expected. Like he has come here to bare his soul and Javi has just thrown it away. It yanks at Javi’s heart, seeing Yuzu like that – like he doesn’t know where he is headed, for the first time in his life. 

“I can’t do this,” he forces himself to say before he changes his mind. “Please leave.”

*

Twenty-two hours. That’s how long it takes him to make up his mind. Javi knows when Yuzu is leaving Beijing because he had texted Brian, first thing in the morning, to ask. Yuzu is not the only one who can use the fact that Brian is a traitor to his advantage. 

Still, Javi had waited until the last minute, torn. 

He barely made it, but here he is now, at the airport, waiting a little way off from the photographers who are teeming like sharks by the entrance.

Yuzu strides in, head held high even though his face lacks its usual vividness. Brian is with him, which Javi didn’t expect, talking to him as they walk. Yuzu’s security detail is trailing just behind to make sure nobody bothers him. Javi is determined to bother him. He needs to know if Yuzu really means it. 

“Hey, Yuzu,” Javi calls as Yuzu passes by.

Yuzu nearly stumbles. He stops and turns, staring at Javi, and the wild hope that illuminates his features makes Javi’s knees go weak.

The cameras go click-click-click when the photographers realize just who Javi is. Javi doesn’t care. He’s been through this, has dealt with all the crap that comes with an involuntary public outing. 

After the inevitable break-up from Marina, there were the pictures somebody had snapped of him and that boy – Alex, Javi thinks was his name? It was a casual encounter, one of many. He had been a Korean-American student on exchange in Madrid, that much Javi remembers. The only other thing Javi remembers is that Alex had reminded him of Yuzu. At the time, Javi had thought that he could get Yuzu out of his system if he just hooked up with enough other people. Because surely Yuzu was not all that great. There were plenty of other men, and women. 

Javi didn’t get his absolution, no matter how many pretty Asian-looking men he took home. The only thing Javi got was a few grainy photos of him and Alex kissing behind a night-club splashed across the pages of Spanish tabloids and a barrage of insults on Twitter. 

He watches as Yuzu takes a look around, a deer in the headlights. A few more flashes go off. From the corner of his eye, Javi sees Brian rub at his face. 

Yuzu draws a breath and then steps towards Javi, smiling like he has just won another Olympics. It’s the most beautiful thing Javi has ever seen. He opens his arms in an unspoken invitation. And Yuzu steps right in.

*

“Javi,” Yuzu is mumbling. “Oh Javi, Javi, Javi.” It spills from his lips in a litany of moans and whispers, each repetition more breathless than the previous one. Javi thinks he’ll never get tired of hearing his name roll off Yuzu’s tongue. Especially like this, with Yuzu writhing under him, sweaty and flushed and spread open, thighs wrapped around Javi so tightly Javi feels like he might crush him. Javi wouldn’t even mind.

He rolls his hips, slowly, pulling out halfway before he settles back fully into the heat that is Yuzu, trembling around him. The sound that rips from Yuzu’s open mouth makes Javi shiver. He does it again, and again, the vaguely vulgar sounds of their joining the only accompaniment to Yuzu’s ever-louder moans.

Javi nearly loses his mind when Yuzu comes, spasming all around him and leaving scratches all over Javi’s back, like he's completely given up any semblance of control or care. He pumps his hips forward a few more times, riding out the aftershocks of Yuzu’s completion to chase his own. He spills himself inside Yuzu and collapses onto him, breathing in his scent, tasting Yuzu’s salty sweat on his tongue when he leaves open-mouthed kisses all over the side of Yuzu’s neck. He pulls out, spent, and rolls onto his back to lie next to Yuzu, finding Yuzu’s wrist to hold on to. 

It takes Javi a moment to realize that Yuzu is crying.

“Hey,” he says gently and rolls onto his hip to look at him. “Have I hurt you?” His heartbeat picks up uncomfortably when there is no answer. He swipes at Yuzu’s pink cheeks with his thumb, brushing the tears away. “Yuzu, love, talk to me, please.”

Yuzu shudders. “I couldn’t stop, Javi. I couldn’t quit. I had to – I had to.” The words are broken, Yuzu’s voice snagging as he draws one shallow breath after another.

“What – ?” Javi asks, confused.

“The earthquake – I – I promised to live a full life.” Yuzu is covering his face with his hands now, hiding behind them. He’s shaking all over, struggling to breathe, and Javi is scared. He has no idea where Yuzu’s inhaler is. “So many people, Javi. I had to do – something worthy. Something – special.”

The truth slams into Javi with a force that nearly knocks him out. He stares, slack-jawed, and feels like an asshole. He had thought that Yuzu was just – greedy? That he just wanted to prove he was the best there’s ever been, get his third consecutive gold because nobody had ever done it before. In a way, Javi realizes, that is true – but the reasons behind it couldn’t be more different than what he had imagined. And he had come here with his assumptions - and asked even more of Yuzu, asked him to prove himself to Javi, too, catching him out in the open, in public. He hates himself.

“Fuck,” he whispers, then remembers that this is not about his own epiphany. “I’m here,” he says as he gently tugs Yuzu’s hands away from his tear-streaked face. “It’s okay, I got you, I got you. Just breathe, okay? Please breathe.”

He draws a deep, exaggerated breath, then exhales slowly. Inhale. Exhale. He forces himself to set a rhythm. To his immense relief, a couple of breaths on, Yuzu follows.

“That’s good, cariño,” he soothes and threads his fingers into Yuzu’s hair, drawing circles against his scalp. “It’s okay. You did great. You’re so brave, you’ve made everyone proud. Just rest now, shh.”

He keeps the reassurances coming until Yuzu’s breathing evens out again.

“Don’t leave, Javi, please.” The words are so quiet Javi barely catches them, barely more than a warm puff of breath against his neck. “I waited so long.” 

“I’m so sorry. I’m never letting you go,” he tells Yuzu and he means it. There’s nowhere else he’d rather be than here. Like the Earth to the Sun, this is where Javi belongs. 

*

“How did it go?” Javi asks when Yuzu skips out of the building and into his arms for a kiss.

“Good,” Yuzu says. He hardly ever tells Javi more than that, mostly mum about his therapy, but Javi doesn’t feel like he needs to pry further. He can see that things are going well, that Yuzu is better. He doesn’t need to know what goes on in Yuzu’s sessions, not when it would mean reawakening whatever trauma he and his therapist had dealt with that day. Today, Yuzu’s face is smooth, though, his eyes bright, no tear-induced puffiness in sight. An easier one, then, today.

“Are you ready?” Javi asks and he links their hands before they set out towards the subway.

Yuzu nods and smiles. “Let’s do this.”

*

The machine makes a whining noise that reminds Javi uncomfortably of the dentist. It hurts less than he anticipated, though, even when the artist goes over the bony spots she had warned him about. Maybe the years of repeatedly crashing into the ice have given his body a higher resistance to pain. 

He glances at Yuzu who is lying on the table next to his. The blond girl working on Yuzu’s tattoo still seems sketchy to Javi, but Yuzu assured him that she’s good at this. She had done Yuzu’s first tattoo, after all.

Javi glances down at his own skin, at the symbol slowly taking shape under his left hip-bone.

It’s a simpler design than the Olympic rings he and Yuzu both have, on different parts of their bodies and, as Javi had learned, for vastly different reasons. 

A sideways number eight, the smooth line looping into itself endlessly. Infinity. Javi looks over at Yuzu again, catching his eye. His gaze sparkles. 

This is it then. The beginning of _forever_.

**Author's Note:**

> When a friend asked for bottom!Javi, this is not the fic I had expected to write. In general, this was not what I had expected at all - the ending I had thought was going to happen was completely different, the way things went turned out completely different. This is a true example of characters doing what they want to do. 
> 
> This was also a very emotional fic for me. I usually do not get very attached or emotional while writing, but I nearly cried over this one. I also agonized over whether it _works_ a lot. 
> 
> With that - please let me know what you think in the comments. <3


End file.
